Conveyor devices, in particular for crops, are used, for example, on harvesting machines, such as baling presses, and are known. With harvesting machines, such as baling presses, in particular, round baling presses, compressed agricultural material or crops are conducted from a crop pick-up device to a conveyor device that comprises a conveyor rotor, in the form of a conveyor roller, which together with a conveyor channel floor, forms a conveyor channel by means of which the crops are conveyed to a pressing chamber. The conveyor channel floor can be designed so it can be adjusted in such a way that the distance to the conveyor rotor can be decreased or increased. In this way, the conveyor channel cross section can be changed so as to avoid or prevent overload situations, which can arise by picking up too large an amount of crops on the conveyor rotor or in the conveyor device. The overload is thereby often detected on the conveyor rotor itself, by, for example, torque sensors, or also by force or pressure sensors on the conveyor channel floor or on adjustment components and used to influence or control the cross section of the conveyor channel.
Such a conveyor device is disclosed, for example, in DE 198 41 598 A1, wherein the conveyor channel floor can be lowered in order to avoid overloads of the conveyor rotor and, in particular, clogging, as early as possible. To this end, torque sensors, electronically controllable means, and an electronic control unit are used to lower the conveyor channel floor as a function of a drive torque acting on the conveyor motor. A maximum drive torque, at which the control begins to intervene, so as to lower the conveyor channel floor, can be prespecified thereby by the operator. This can be disadvantageous in that upon lowering the conveyor channel floor, the entire width of the conveyor rotor is affected so that the crops conveyed into the compressing chamber are affected over the entire width of the conveyor. A reaction to the accumulating crops, partially directed over the width of the conveyor rotor, is not possible. This can lead to density and compression differences in the flow of crops. Furthermore, the conveyance of the crops can be interrupted over a part of or the entire width if the conveyor channel floor should be lowered beyond a certain extent over the entire width. In this way, the compressing operation of the crops would be interrupted or delayed.